Posted
by
timothyon Thursday December 13, 2012 @11:12AM
from the it's-for-your-own-good-lady dept.

turbosaab writes "A woman who said she was asked to leave New Hampshire's Pheasant Lane Mall because she wanted to buy too many iPhones was pinned down by Nashua police and zapped by a Taser (video) as she shrieked in front of crowds of shoppers Tuesday. The Chinese woman from Newton, Mass blamed a language barrier for the confrontation outside the Apple Store in the Pheasant Lane Mall Tuesday afternoon. Police say Li knew exactly what they were telling her and simply refused to comply. Police said Li had $16,000 in cash in her purse at the time of her arrest and may have been purchasing the phones for unauthorized export resale."

No, the proper response is to call the cops, which the store did. The police then proceeded to taze her, which may or may not have been excessive but is not the store's or Apple's fault either way. Or at least that's what I got from the summary.

Nitpicking over the interpretation of 'trespass' aside, don't you think common sense could have prevailed? I'm sure two big policemen could have made the store managers intentions clear then managed to frog-march her out of the store without resorting to this.

> If someone was trespassing on your property and refused to leave, you'd be justified in tasering> them too.

Actually, I live in a state where I would be required to escape, if able. I would have no justification of tasering them.

Now personally, i think thats silly, but, I still think the police went overboard. Tasers were developed and issued as an alternative to shooting and killing, not talking and persueding. Unless they were in danger to the point of being justified using lethal force, then I don't see how they were justified in using less lethal force (which can be lethal or do serious harm, depending on the circumstances) by her refusal to leave when they would like her to.

Annoyance and disrespect for authority are not physically threatening to anyone. These abusers should be stripped of their badges and given the opportunity to go work in a field where they can afford to be less professional without endangering the public.

If someone was trespassing on your property and refused to leave, you'd be justified in tasering them too.

Taser is meant to be a last resort weapon, not a first restort. It's a milder alternative to shooting, not a high tech replacement for subduing with less severe means.People die from being tasered. Even a nightstick is less severe. And nets. Not to mention all the other options, like just, you know, holding the lady, which two trained policemen should be perfectly capable of doing.

When people think it's ok to use a last resort weapon as a primary response, there's something seriously wrong with the society.

One time a woman gets tasered and you go with the assumption that it wasn't a proper response. I have to ask, did you even RTFA and do any basic research or are you just reacting to the ridiculously sensationalist headline?

Well, when they already have her pinned to the ground - Damn straight "it wasn't a proper response"!

Cuff her and drag her to the car if she won't walk, but at the point they already have their suspect subdued, tazing someone amounts to nothing less than torturing them out of petty vindictiveness.

Local police officers being qualified to deal with international export laws? Not likely. There's a whole government branch set up for this, the ITA I believe.

The cops were not doing that. They were called in because a person would not leave a store after being asked to leave. This is something they do every day of the year. The whole export thing was a private dispute between Apple and the woman.

FTFY: Selling all your stock to one woman who obviously doesn't need $16,000.00 worth of phones and turning away all other customers who want to buy an iPhone (and will slag your store as useless to their friends because, 'what kind of iPhone store doesn't have iPhones?') and possibly a bunch of accessories AND any return business they might provide IS bad for business.

No, but the police can zap you with electricity for peacefully spending your own money.

Don't argue like a child.

1) She wanted to purchase multiple iPhones. There is a limit of two iPhones per person. When the staff recognised that she'd already purchased at least 2, they refused to serve her.

2) She then behaved inappropriately inside the store, including but not limited to videoing other customers purtchasing iPhones. She was asked to leave as is the right of a store.

3) She refused to leave. At which point the police were called.

4) She refused to co-operate with the police officer asking her to leave for a further 15 minutes. At some point the request to leave the store had escalated to a request to leave the mall as a result of the non-cooperation.

5) A second police officer arrived, and still not cooperating, she was arrested. She actively resisted arrest, and was tazered as a result to get her to comply.

I don't think 2 male policemen should be tazering an unarmed middle aged woman that is resisting arrest. However on every other point it was the woman behaving unreasonably and forcing the escalation.

The police don't care how many iphones she wanted to buy. The store owner didn't like it, and ordered her out of the store. The police were enforcing the store's right to remove someone from the store's property.

I guarantee there are plenty of women out there who could beat the crap out of you and me both. I am not saying this Chinese woman was one of them, and I am not saying that taser should have been used, but I would not use the sex of a person to determine their level of threat. Certainly they could have overpowered her given enough people. I would wait to see the video surveillance before I decide whether excessive force was used.

You might call me old fashioned or sexist here, but where I'm from we get taught not to use violence against women.

Ok, you are old fashioned and sexist. How about not using violence against anyone? You're basically implying that it is acceptable to use violence against men but not women. Gender should play NO role in this discussion whatsoever. Men are no more deserving of violence than women.

You're missing the point. The police tastered this person because she did something perfectly legal, which is to say, buy iPhones. She may or may not have had an intent to later export them, which would be illegal-- but this is no excuse for their actions.

No, they tasered her because she did something perfectly illegal--refusing to leave private property when asked to do so. They didn't give a damn about (indeed, probably do not even know about) the arcana of encryption export controls.

You're missing the point. The police tastered this person because she did something perfectly legal, which is to say, buy iPhones. She may or may not have had an intent to later export them, which would be illegal-- but this is no excuse for their actions.

No, they tasered her because she did something perfectly illegal--refusing to leave private property when asked to do so. They didn't give a damn about (indeed, probably do not even know about) the arcana of encryption export controls.

I have to admit I'm a bit divided on this. On the one hand, I do believe she was probably intentionally being obtuse and refusing to comply. On the other hand, tasering for every mildly difficult or confrontational situation is ridiculous.

I think every time an officer uses a taser on someone, the officer should receive a taser shot 2x - just to make him evaluate whether the taser is really necessary in a situation.

The police tastered this person because she did something perfectly legal, which is to say, buy iPhones. She may or may not have had an intent to later export them, which would be illegal-- but this is no excuse for their actions.

Having intent to export is illegal. Having a plausible reason to believe that someone is disturbing the peace (which she did) or having a plausible reason to believe she intended to export (which she admitted) are both illegal and subjects you to arrest. Furthermore not calling the police when you have a suspicion that someone is purchasing a regulated item for export makes you an accomplice in the crime itself should it be committed. The Apple personnel did exactly what the law requires them to. The police did exactly as the law requires them to.

As far as resisting arrest- I am a man, if I made it out without broken bones and several felonies tacked on I would be grateful.

The police did NOT do exactly as they were supposed to do. The teaser is a replacement for shooting someone. It should never be used unless the alternative is to shoot them with a bullet. There is nothing in this story that indicates the threat to life and limb had risen to that level. The police used massivley excessive force in this case.

A tazer is not a replacement for shooting someone. A tazer is a replacement for clubbing someone with a nightstick or baton. Shooting someone with a firearm is deadly force, the intention is to definitively stop the subject - killing them if necessary. The purpose of a tazer or baton is to subdue an aggressive individual that will not comply with verbal instructions. Tasers are (in theory, some exceptions) non-lethal. And unlike the traditional nightstick, they won't generally break your bones or cause skull injuries when they are used on you. Personally, I'd much rather be tazed than beaten with a stick. But then, I'd have also left the store when refused service.

And unlike the traditional nightstick, they won't generally break your bones or cause skull injuries when they are used on you.

Try dropping your skull 5.5ft onto concrete and get back to me on that. Tasers do not give you a chance to break your fall. I'd rather get a couple broken bones than risk ventricular fibrillation or a grand mal seizure. VF will kill you out right, and one grand-mal seizure significantly increases your risk of future seizures.

The store is private property. You're not entitled to stand in there and disrupt their business in such a manner, any more than if someone stood by you at your workplace and shouted at you, or went to your house and shouted at you in your living room.

You've set up a straw man, because it's reasonable to deduce from the evidence that the Apple store called police to get her to leave, not to "enforce" an "arbitrary sale limit rule". You don't know whether it's arbitrary, for one. I can think of several specific reasons for such a rule: scalping, hoarding, and the aforementioned export regulations. If someone doesn't want to do business with you-- save for obvious violations of the Civil Rights Act-- they don't have to. And you don't have to shop there. And you can picket the store while standing on public property, but not while on private property.

Whether or not Ms. Li knew enough English to know what her situation was will without a doubt become clear.

It's already clear in this case. She had gone to the exact same store the preceding Friday attempting to buy dozens of iPhones, and on that particular day understood quite well what the manager meant when he said "Please leave and do not return to this store." Yet we're to believe that the following Monday, when faced with the same situation and the same "Please leave and do not return", she's now a poor Chinese immigrant fresh off the boat, struggling to break through the language barrier.

Huh. Apparently, you can unlearn a language over the course of a weekend.

For the record: Yes, failing to follow the orders of police in the US is a good way to come in close contact with a taser or baton, fact of life.

So you have these rulers who wander around giving out arbitrary commands to the proles. The rulers pretend to be following some 'law' but really they are above most laws and only have to follow their own loose interpretation of some written law. They meet any perceived challenge to their authority with mild to extreme violence often involving electrical torture devices.

Seriously, I dont care how irritate she was, how on earth could she be a risk. I do love the export comment, like it mitigates their actions...I mean tasering an illegal exporter is totally justified, right?

iPhones are MADE in China for fucks sake. So they made them there, shipped them all the way here, and then we say "don't export these Chinese made gadgets back to the country where they were made?!?" Any export restrictions involved here are about pricing things differently in different markets. By being their own store, Apple can maximize profits but choosing where and for how much they sell their product without fear of competition... unless people start buying iPhones in one market and moving them to another... so they lobby congress to ban exports of their own product, even though they sell the same product in both markets. I for one hope buying apple products continues this trend of Tazzering, they get what they deserve.

It doesn't matter with cops (with tasers). Me being 5.11 and upset will simply get me pinned to the floor hit with a nightstick, ZAPPED and handcuffed just for being emotional about an issue in front of them. I.E I'm upset therefore it's justification to assault me. Being tall and athletic means gives grounds for 5 bouncers in a nightclub to attack me even if I'm not irate but cheerful and drunk (they legally classify it as disorderly and label me a potential threat).

There is a serious problem with how enforcement works these days and they get away with assaulting people without justification all the freaking time whether it be bouncers, police or any other form of crowd control and they do it because they are usually just a bunch of low lives themselves. When it involves tasers it changes enforcement from "deal with the situation with your brain and apply a more measured approach" to simply "ZAP ZAP... ZAP ZAP ZAP... problem solved".

Further to this cops are usually just thugs as it is, give them a set of toys to assist with their thuggery (such as tasers) they'll use them. It doesn't matter if you're the front-line on the NFL or a 45kg Asian woman they'll take you down just the same. So the difference between and NFL player and this small woman is it just looks bad on camera and poses as evidence, if say it were me there and I took it further I'd get laughed at but she takes it further she could have their badges for breakfast.

But lets look at it this way, without the gadgets, 2 lazy ass cops do that to me over an iPhone they'd better be good otherwise I'd be pinning the fuckers to the floor and really that is the precedence they then blanket over everyone else and allows them to justify it.

Couple that with the fact they carry guns which can easily be disarmed by anyone quick enough and what happens is the concept that "cops always have to be on top" falls apart, so he potential of them getting fucked by their own tools of protection means they give them more toys (tasers) which now has given them that luxury of ZAPPING people.

I hope she gets them fired and takes taser banning one step further, god awful things.

It doesn't matter with cops (with tasers). Me being 5.11 and upset will simply get me pinned to the floor hit with a nightstick, ZAPPED and handcuffed just for being emotional about an issue in front of them. I.E I'm upset therefore it's justification to assault me. Being tall and athletic means gives grounds for 5 bouncers in a nightclub to attack me even if I'm not irate but cheerful and drunk (they legally classify it as disorderly and label me a potential threat).

I'm 6'8 and weigh in at about 300lbs, of which probably about 40lbs of it is fat. I've never been asked to leave a bar, let alone been approached by a bouncer or five. In the times that I've been confronted with cops, I've never had one draw his handcuffs, nightstick or taser, let alone try to use one of them on me. If you have, perhaps the problem here isn't your size, it's your attitude.

Police are now so badly trained and so out of shape they can't even handle a 44 year-old, 80 pound Chinese woman, they have to resort to high tech weaponry.

You seem to be operating under the assumption that using 'pain compliance' tools on people weaker than they are, with minimal chances of any significant personal consequences, is something that cops are trying to avoid...

The problem isn't that they can't handle a small woman, it's that they can't subdue her in a way that doesn't risk injuring her. Couldn't hear the video but it looks like she was thrashing around even when held on the floor. Very easy for her to slam her head against the floor when struggling or to twist around in a way that puts her arm at risk of dislocating or breaking.

There is something wrong when a police officer cannot wrap an 85 lb woman in a bear hug and just hold her until she realizes that continuing to struggle is going to get her nowhere. The key thing is a lack of patience and the mistaken belief that tasers are non-lethal. A taser should only be used in a situation where an officer would use a gun if necessary but would rather not. If shooting the suspect is not justified, then neither is using a taser. So, would the officers have been justified in shooting this woman?

I have some police training from when I was in the military, and with it, training on the use of force. Use of a taser or pepper spray should be limited to subduing threatening individuals where lethal force is not necessary. The question you should ask yourself first is "Is this person going to harm myself or someone else without much risk of fatality?". If you can answer "yes" to that, then it's permissible to use a taser. These cops are assholes and should be held responsible for their abuse, and anyone in their chain of command who is covering for them should receive at least the same punishment. As long as we allow cops the indiscriminate use of weapons like tasers and pepper spray to subdue non-threatening citizens, this is only going to get worse.

Uh.. I don't think it's because the police were out of shape. They sure could have tackled and pinned her to the ground, which likely would have caused a hell of a lot more long-term injury to her than simply getting tazed would.

They did; for fuck's sake, man, it says so right in the damn summary!

I mean, shit! I see why nobody RTFA's anymore, it seems some folks can't even make it through the

Uh.. I don't think it's because the police were out of shape. They sure could have tackled and pinned her to the ground, which likely would have caused a hell of a lot more long-term injury to her than simply getting tazed would.

Perhaps you should try observing the police in more civilised places. The solution to an unruly 44 year old 80lb woman does not genreally require police brutality like you suggest (which was actually done as well).

If two fit policemen can't cope with a situation like that without a taser or excessive force, then they should be stripped of their badge.

If she won't leave, and either doesn't (or pretends not to) understand commands, what else are you supposed to do? Spend 4 days developing some kind of rudimentary language bridge and debate the finer points?

This. I think a good solution here would be for police to just tase anyone attempting to buy an iPhone in an Apple store.

It's an elegant, simple, user-oriented solution to an age-old problem. It could be augmented by intelligent choices among typefaces, and skeumorphisms to make the analogy clearer. And you have to admit, it has a certain Steve-Jobs-flair (tm) to it, don't you? The policeman could come right up to your face, and with a breath wreaking of donuts and stale coffee, shriek "OH AND JUST ONE MORE THING!!" right before pulling the trigger.

Android simply couldn't compete with this. Apple's vertically-integrated retail channels offer "marketing leverage". Apple would be lifting something that was previously a simple transaction and transforming it into an integrated, social experience. Again, Apple is setting the pace.

These sorts of events are similar to what I would have expected in countries like China, not the United States. LEOs do not need to taser most people, especially a female who appears much less powerful than the officers holding her down in the video. The tool is used as a second-to-last resort, not as as way to make an arrest easier on the officers.

You sir are either an idiot or willfully ignorant. Tasing is not an improvement, previous practice in these types of situations was to firmly and gentley restrain and I'm freaking sorry that you don't understand how easy it is for a healthy police officer to restrain an 80 pound 44 year old woman. Baton chokeholds and other similar measures were and still are used for violent resisters.

Cash transactions at banks over $10,000 are subject to special reporting requirements, thanks largely to the War on Drugs. It wouldn't surprise me if trying to make any kind of cash transaction for $16K draws unwanted attention in the current police state environment.

Obviously, she was taking the money she earned selling drugs, and laundering it by buying iPhones for cash, then reselling them. Makes perfect sense to a cop, who has been trained to assume that EVERYBODY is a criminal....

Hmmm.. makes perfect sense. Addiction to iThings very similar to addiction to drugs. Both are equally craved; largely empty and useless... they give you a 'kick' for a while, and then you feel wistful and want something slightly better for which you are ready to part with loads of cash for no reason in particular.She must be sent to a de-addiction center to help recover from the fruity company craze.

Cash transactions at banks over $10,000 are subject to special reporting requirements, thanks largely to the War on Drugs. It wouldn't surprise me if trying to make any kind of cash transaction for $16K draws unwanted attention in the current police state environment.

Obviously, she was taking the money she earned selling drugs, and laundering it by buying iPhones for cash, then reselling them. Makes perfect sense to a cop, who has been trained to assume that EVERYBODY is a criminal....

You need to come up for air more often. The war on drugs is so 1990's. It's all about terrorists now. We all know she was buying the phones for Al-Qaida. They probably figured out that taping an iPhone to a string attached to a trigger is a 99% reliable way to detonate a bomb. After all, what American could resist picking up a shiny new iPhone.

I think it's more likely that if you get enough of them close together you can achieve critical mass. It's obviously another attempt by Iran to build a boomer.

There are times to use painful, potentially fatal, means of coercion. This isn't one of them.

Unfortunately, we're going to get a lot of people posting here claiming that simply because the police demanded she do something, and she didn't, that they were justified. The simple truth is, no, they weren't. You don't get to do anything you like to someone simply because you have a badge and they didn't do what you told them to.

It seems the concept that violence is a last resort has disappeared from policing.. Increasingly, even quiet, cooperative people are pinned down, handcuffed and manhandled as a matter of course. Violence has become one of the "perks" of policework, and the evil cycle of abuse and intimidation means fewer and fewer people object. Can anyone see any reason whatsoever for the violent treatment of this woman, who at worst is guilty of conspiracy to illegally export some telephones?

Something needs to change in police training. Too often cops resort to BBQing people with 50,000 volts at the least sign of resistance, and, in some instances, no resistance at all. Yet, too often when you see a mall shooting or hostage situation, you don't see the police putting their lives on the line to save people. They often seem far too concerned with their own safety than the public's, and all these taser incidents seem like a part of that mentality. That's just my observation. I'm sure there are also plenty of good cops out there too, but the bad ones seem to make the headlines far too often.

The policy continues, "The weapon is a level of force normally required to overcome passive, defensive, or offensive resistance that is intended as an act of overt aggression toward the officer where an individual refuses to comply with verbal instructions."

How exactly can "passive resistance" be an act of overt aggression? So basically, do whatever the cops say, or they will tase you. If you do not follow their orders, you are being "overtly aggressive" , the same as if you were throwing punches at them. Tasers being being overused in this country.

If you watch every season of Cops within a reasonably short period of time (say over a month or two) you can clearly see the shift in police procedures and attitudes spreading across the country. (It started before Tasers by the way.)

The earliest seasons have old-fashioned policing, where cops talk to irate people and calm them down, as long as the person doesn't get violent. If the suspects put their hands up, the cops just handcuff them standing up, no degrading "get on the ground" treatment, no crushing the suspect's neck with their knees, no body-slamming people to the ground, then while resting on top of them screaming "stop resisting!"

By the mid-90s seasons you see this wave of assaults and violence spread across the police forces. People put their hands up, the cops have no reason to suspect any violence, but they body-slam them to the ground anyway. Many times you see 5-9 cops on top of one person, often standing on the person's arms while multiple people scream "put your hands behind your back!" (Which they physically cannot do) and "stop resisting!" In other cases they demand people get down on the ground, just to humiliate them.

The Taser is just another in a line of police battery tactics, designed to humiliate, degrade, and torture suspects, but without leaving any permanent marks that you can sue over.

It bears repeating: don't talk to these thugs for any reason. Never answer their questions and comply with all orders, no matter how degrading. Never consent to a search of your person or car if asked. If they search anyway, say nothing and talk to your lawyer. Don't bring up video evidence or violations or they'll destroy evidence to cover their tracks, do not rely on honesty - police will always cover for themselves, no matter how heinous the crime, and the police union will get them reinstated with back pay after the public stops caring about the story. You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride.

We live in a police state, same as China or Soviet Russia. Deal with it.

To anyone that still believes all that "Protect and Serve" shit, tasers are primarily and overwhelmingly used by LEOs as punishment. They are not used to protect anyone. If you do not do exactly as the officer says, no matter how unfair it may seem, you will be tasered. It is immediate punishment administered without judicial review. Plus, it relieves a lot of frustration for the cop.

So let's all stop pretending now that use of a taser is anything legal or moral, it's a circumvention of judicial review, denial of individual rights and a travesty of justice. Tasers should be outlawed or their use outside of life threatening situations should be cause for immediate dismissal of the offending officer. Any other course of action is merely inviting a Judge Dredd type of future.

Before I knew about this story, in a cab this evening I was asked by a European what I thought about the U.S. I said there is something wrong with it, something fundamentally morally wrong. I mentioned how strident and militaristic the country has become over the past 20 years, how the media is complicit, how nobody ever mentions what seem to be huge numbers of civilians killed in the Iraq war, which in another country would be grounds for a war crimes trial.. and how students get tazed.

I said I thought something has gone wrong, that there is a big moral dilemma. I see this being an American who has lived outside the U.S. for a while. He seemed relieved saying he totally agreed. Then I come home and read about a tasing in an Apple Store.

Casual tazing and ultra-cynical liars in office and on the TV really worries me, the more I think about it the more it worries me. It isn't about export or not. Listen. There is a deep disease in the moral fiber or psychological constitution or socialized norms, whatever you call it, that reflects a ruinous self-negation in the U.S.A., that counterbalances all the wonderful things like slashdot and makers and late night comedians exposing hypocrisy, and summer barbecues and bookstores, oh lots of things. If people had their heads screwed on right the extreme prejudice of cops like this would cause them to be immediately kicked out and hounded mercilessly by the masses who are reading about it online right now. This does not happen because the actions of these officers is an organic result of a major imbalance that is unchecked.

My first idea is that the imbalance is fueled by a power-hungry elite, by a cynical military-industrial-financial complex but to tell you the truth that is bullshit. It is because everyone, all of you, and me, and your families and friends, are all self satisfied consumers of information who, once satisfied in an ADHD kind of sense with having taken in the information, ignores it and will not act on it, because of being media saturated and socialized. People often joke about how far off the conservative edge are both conservatives and liberals in the U.S. but that is because THE NORM IS OFF-BALANCE AND SLIDING. I do not have an answer but I urge you to think about what you can do to find one.

Jay said her mother bought two iPhones last Friday, and was told that was the limit. When she took video of others she claimed were buying more, the store manager asked her to leave.

And she was asked to leave and refused:

"The management of the store asked us to have her removed. The officer approached her, told her she wasn't welcome in the store, and she refused to leave," Nashua Police Capt. Bruce Hansen said.

Important part you left out:

The confrontation involving the Taser happened when Li went to the store on Monday to pick up two iPhones she ordered online.

So, here's how it appears the situation played out (Cliff's Notes for those too dumb or lazy to RTFA):
Incident 1 - Chinese lady goes to the store, tries to buy more than 2 iPhones, is told 2 is the limit. She pre-orders 2 iPhones, and begins to video the other customers, as she is convinced that the store has sold/is selling more than 2 iPhones to other people. Store manager asks her to leave, presumably for filming other customers. No charges files.

Incident 2 - Chinese lady goes back to the store to pick up the 2 iPhones she paid for. Store management tells her she must leave (no mention as to whether or not she had picked up the items she paid for, or if there was a new incident that prompted the request for removal). Confrontation ensues, cops attempt to confiscate the woman's cell phone and purse, then pin down and taze the 80 lb Chinese lady; some kid films it and posts on Youtube. Cops claim she was "resisting," because they always do.

So a small, middle aged woman managed to resist arrest for several minutes? Wow. Those cops should be ashamed of themselves. Really, how did cops survive 10 years ago? Did they all get sound ass kickings from tiny middle aged women?

Seriously, if you can't arrest someone like that without a taser, then you're so badly trained that you should not be allowed out on the street.

Back in the day, in mental hospitals they often used violence to enforce compliance by mental patients who got unruly. Then the Korean War came along and they assigned a bunch of farm boys who refused to serve in the military no matter what form of coercion was used to work as orderlies at the mental hospitals. Now these farm boys weren't going to use violence here anymore than they were going to join the military. So, what did they do? Well, they did what they did when they had a stallion or a bull that would not do what was wanted. They restrained the patient. Two, or more, if they thought that was necessary, would go into the patient's room and approach calmly and carefully despite what the patient would do to resist their approach. When they got close enough, they would take hold of the patient and prevent the patient from moving. The thing about it was that it rarely took more than two of them, even if the patient was large and the two farm boys were not so large. That's because they had learned their techniques against animals that were larger than them, animals that were valuable so you didn't do anything that might damage them. There was one other factor that was very important. They were patient. They were willing to wait until the animal or the patient gave up. The thing was it rarely took that long because there is something very "calming" about dealing with someone who will continue to move towards their goals no matter what you do.

The article describes how, in effect, if there were less people around they would have pepper sprayed her. Police are increasingly using violence as "compliance tools". It is the equivalent of beating someone with a club, but because it is less visual, people don't catch on to how brutal it is.

I don't care if she was surly or not. It's trespassing at best, some federal offense that local townie cops have no business enforcing at worst. When did we go from being a country that asked "who the F are you to tell me to do X" of cops, to kowtowing to their every demand.

Giving tasers to the police was supposed to be a way for them to protect themselves from violent people without using guns. If this old lady was really threatening them then they need to be kicked off the force for being too unfit to serve as a police officer.

Check the video. They did indeed sit on her. It wasn't before she was laying face down to the ground that they tasered her. It looks more like the tasering was used to get her to shutup than to pin her down.

The "authorities"? I thought the police department's motto was "to protect and to serve". They are not authorities. They are certainly not judge, jury and executioner. Visiting multi-volt torture on someone already under their control who hasn't even committed any criminal act is just not cricket....

Because now we live in a totalitarian regime, where the "authorities" must be obeyed?

The authorities should be obeyed, in most general situations, unless they are asking you to do something unlawful. If you're an idiot that is refusing to leave a place of private business when the business owner's representative asks you to leave, and then calls the cops when you refuse to leave, everything else that happens after that is a simple preventable fact.

There is a way of handling the police or other law enforcement officials. Be polite. Be courteous. Follow simple directions, with the above limits. Have a plan to contact an attorney with full details, names, and badge numbers at the soonest available opportunity if the need arises.

You are not going to out-argue a police officer. You are not going to outfight a police officer. You are not going to kill more police officers than there are willing to kill you. Physical or verbal confrontations with a police officer are pointless; they will all end in the same result. The way to fight police injustices is through the courts and media, not through sparring of any kind.

Keep in mind: police officers in any individual incident, above all else, are trained to MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION, using any necessary means. If you're the idiot trying to take control of the situation away from the police officer (rightly or wrongly), guess who's going to end up next on the target list?

No, the PATRIOT Act has caused the rationing. Buying phones without a contract is limited to two per customer because of "potential terror uses".

Seriously, go walk into a Walmart or a Costco, grab three ten dollar Tracfones, put them on the belt, the cash register will not let you buy them. Take one of them away and the transaction will work fine. Alternately, call a local Walmart, ask for electronics, ask them how many non-contract phones you can buy. If you're in the US, the limit is two.